This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Dies connected to and reciprocated by a press are commonly used to attach an electrical terminal to a wire by crimping the terminal to both the insulation and a stripped portion of the wire. Electrical terminals are commonly provided on a reel attached to a tape or carrier strip which positions successive terminals at a predefined, equal spacing. The die commonly includes a feed platen or plate which receives the carrier strip and aligns each terminal with a tool portion. The tool portion commonly includes an insulation stripper, first and second crimp tools, and first and second anvils each vertically aligned under one of the first or second crimp tools. An incremental terminal feeding member such as a feed finger can also be used to incrementally feed a next-in-line terminal from the feed platen to the tool portion with each stroke of a ram provided with the press.
A first connection is commonly created by the first crimp tool and first anvil by crimping the terminal and a stripped wire portion. A second connection is created by the second crimp tool and second anvil by crimping tabs of the terminal about an insulated portion of the wire proximate to the stripped wire portion. Each type and size of terminal commonly requires a separate feed platen or adjustment of an alignment portion of the feed platen to properly align the terminals with the tool portion. Each type and size of terminal also requires a different tool portion. To eliminate the need to separately install a new feed platen, and tool portion, and then align and test these components, terminal installers commonly remove and replace the entire die, feed platen, and tool portion together when changing an assembly line from a first to a second size or type of terminal. This requires not only multiple feed platens and tool portions, but also multiple dies, and therefore increased hardware costs for the multiple dies and die attached components. Each die change, or combined feed platen adjustment and tool portion change can require approximately 30 to 60 minutes for a machine operator to perform, not including fine-adjustment time required to ensure proper alignment between the crimp tools and anvils. This down-time is non productive and therefore decreases efficiency while increasing per-part costs.